Hard to believe that it’s been 20 years since the Spice Girls burst onto the pop scene with ‘Wannabe’ and nearly one year since we started rolling out targeted retirement support with our GO save communication.
What people told us they really wanted was to know how much they needed for retirement and what steps to take to achieve that. That’s exactly what they get with GO save.
This innovative approach to pension communication is resonating well with members and the industry alike. It was this work on GO save that put us on the shortlist for communication innovation of the year at the 2016 Professional Pension awards recently.
GO Save is a new guidance based approach to helping members with their retirement planning, and involves sending out personalised statements (and supporting communications) showing members what they need when they retire, and what they’re likely to get at their current level of saving. The traffic light system is a clear indicator of how on track people are (or aren’t) with their retirement savings. The ‘GO portal’ is an innovative tool developed by Hymans Robertson, who we teamed up with as part of our joint venture over a year ago. Members use this tool to see what level of contribution rate increase/increase to retirement age will get them on track to where they want to be. Like minds handle the communication side of things, such as the statement.
This helps to engage employees on a personal level, as it encompasses vital factors such as:
- How much they pay in
- How long they pay money in for
We really believe that this is a great thing, as it gives people the tools, knowledge and control to enable them to plan for their retirement, from which the outcome will hopefully be a happy and comfortable retirement.
The results we have seen have already been rather promising, for one client we have seen the following:
- – 69% of members logged in and used the GO portal in the first month
- – 33% of members used the retirement age and contribution rate change facilities on the portal
- – 78% of members that answered the feedback survey felt well or very well informed about their retirement savings (compared to 40% before)
- – 92% of members that answered the feedback survey said that the information that GO provided was useful or very useful
This outcome based approach to communication hasn’t been limited to GO communications, as we have found it beneficial across the bigger picture. In fact, using our outcomes based approach to communication we’ve managed to get members to understand how contribution, retirement age and investment all impact what they get when they retire, so they begin to take a more active interest in understanding the importance of what investment option is right for them and their personal circumstance and lifestyle.
We have definitely found all this positive feedback to be really encouraging, and only inspires us further to continue our quest to enable more and more people to make informed decisions about their pension and investment options.
